Death Threats/Expulsion from Family, Society

Moral Code defines the core of most religion, its cement and social bonding power. To love, avoid aggression, seek truth, be just, believe and act what the heart and conscience tells us is right, such thoughts can lift the spirit, and for most religions serve as a guide to help mold a believer’s spirituality and sustain a stable and productive lifestyle. Yet too often through perverse or selective interpretation, followers take actions contrary to their religion’s fundamental doctrines. To discriminate, be hurtful, harm, murder and even use religion as a way to justify barbarous behaviors becomes acceptable.

For the past ten years, Sujit Dhakal (Sam) resides with his wife in Queens, New York, a U.S. resident raising two children. Once a privileged member of the Nepal “Bramhan” upper Caste, as a young journalist, Sam fell in love with a fellow writer and decided to Inter-Caste marry Ranu. But born into the Newar “Shrestha” Caste, Ranu sat two levels lower within the rigid system. The repercussions include death threats and expulsion from family and society.

For defying tradition, Sam’s father Kanhaiya Upadhyaay, president of a Hindu religious organization (Dhakal Kuldewata Sewa Samiti), in Janakpur Dham, Nepal, disowned his son, removing Sam and his daughter-in-law from the family lineage, “I’ll not see your face again until after I’m dead.”

After some years, the attitude remains unchanged. When Sam planned a trip to Nepal with his son, Samarpan, for Bratabandha, (a ritual after a child reaches age 7 and above that essentially carries the weight of a Catholic Confirmation or Jewish Bar Mitzvah), a meeting was held to revoke Samarpan’s Hindu rite of passage, and in the event of a confrontation, the grandfather and the organization threatened “unto death” to stop the ritual. Sam cancelled the trip. Full Story